Published in 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird has become an American literary classic. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was made into an Academy Award-winning film in 1962, with Gregory Peck playing Atticus Finch. The novel also won the Brotherhood Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews in 1961 and was Best Sellers magazine “Paperback of the Year” in 1961.

Although Harper Lee has not published a major work since To Kill a Mockingbird, the book retains its place in American literature for its telling of a regional story with a universal message. Also, although it is not a main issue, the novel features a feminist struggle. Even though the main focus of the novel remains Scout’s growing recognition of the prejudices of her surroundings, Scout struggles for an understanding of womanhood. Through the strong, lyrical voice of this independent tomboy, the reader sees a young girl unsure of her place in Southern femininity. Scout struggles with how to fit into the world of “ladies,” as exemplified by her Aunt Alexandria, and how to retain the independence that she has had as a child. Men still hold the main arena, and their world seems much more interesting to Scout than the world of caretaking that her aunt enjoys. Only Miss Maudie, Scout’s outspoken neighbor, offers a good model for Scout. Maudis is independent and speaks her mind, yet she enjoys her baking and tending her garden.

Lee has been linked to other Southern writers who emerged in American literature after World War II, such as Truman Capote (who was the model for Dill in the novel), Carson McCullers, William Styron, and Eudora Welty. Along with these writers, Lee celebrates the Southern tradition of looking back on the past as did her predecessor William Faulkner. The new Southern writers, however, wrote about a “new South,” a region that looked not only to its past but also to its future. Critics praised Lee for her portrayal of the new Southern liberal in the character of Atticus Finch. They also praise her technical use of point of view and her strong evocation of place as the strengths of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Although frequently referred to as a regional novel, To Kill a Mockingbird quickly proved to have universal appeal. A best-seller, it received mixed critical reviews but was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and soon became one of the most widely read contemporary novels in U.S. high schools. Objections to its mild profanity, inclusion of racial epithets, depiction of hypocrisy in religion, and reference to rape led to occasional short-term censorship in public schools and libraries but ultimately only increased the popularity of the novel. Written during one of the most turbulent periods of race relations in the United States, To Kill a Mockingbird effectively reflects and indicts the social code of the South, which conflicted with established law in failing to provide justice for all, regardless of race. As race relations were being tested in both the courts and the streets, readers responded emotionally and intellectually to a literary work that advocated equal justice for all humanity.

Civil Rights in the 1950s

Although slavery had been abolished nearly a century before the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960 (President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863), African Americans continued to be deprived of many of their fundamental rights. While Lee's novel is set in the Southern United States during the 1930s, conditions had only slightly improved by the early 1960s. The Civil Rights movement began to form in the 1950s, and its principles started to gain recognition in American courtrooms and laws. The landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case, Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, leading to the gradual desegregation of other public institutions. Nonetheless, there was significant resistance to these changes, and many states, especially in the South, took several years to fully integrate their schools.

Blacks faced other societal indignities such as segregated public restrooms and drinking fountains, and being compelled to sit at the back of buses. This injustice was confronted by Rosa Parks, a mild-mannered department store seamstress. After her arrest for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger, civil rights leaders initiated a successful boycott of the Montgomery, Alabama, bus system on December 5, 1955. The boycott was principally led by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Together with other Black pastors like Charles K. Steele and Fred Shuttlesworth, King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in January 1957, a pivotal organization in ending legal segregation by the mid-1960s. In the same year Lee secured a contract for the unfinished manuscript of To Kill a Mockingbird, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which imposed penalties for voting rights violations and established the Civil Rights Commission. However, comprehensive protection and enforcement of all African American rights would not be realized until the next decade, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Bill of 1968. These laws prohibited racial discrimination in public spaces, workplaces, polling places, and housing.

In the 1950s, the justice system was equally biased, with Black individuals being excluded from jury service and facing arrest, trials, and convictions with minimal justification. A significant case from 1955 involved two white men accused of murdering Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old African American boy who allegedly harassed a white woman. Similar to Tom Robinson's trial, the jury in Till's case was entirely white and male, and the trial took place in a segregated courtroom. Despite the defense's implausible arguments that the body couldn't be positively identified as Till and that the defendants were framed, the jury took only an hour to acquit them of all charges. The men later confessed their crimes in detail to a journalist but were never held accountable for the murder.

The Great Depression and Race Relations

The racial dynamics of the 1950s and 1960s closely mirror those depicted in To Kill a Mockingbird, which is set nearly three decades earlier. The South, still deeply rooted in its agricultural heritage, was severely impacted by the Great Depression. Small farmers, like Lee's character Walter Cunningham Sr., often struggled to earn enough from their crops to pay their mortgages and cover basic living expenses. Lee's novel captures the romanticism that many white Southerners associated with their way of life, which they felt was threatened by industrialization. However, this tradition also upheld practices like sharecropping, where tenant farmers were nearly enslaved to landowners who supplied them with land, food, and farming tools. The dire plight of sharecroppers is vividly portrayed in Erskine Caldwell's 1932 novel, Tobacco Road. The pervasive racism in the South, where many Blacks were sharecroppers, is also depicted in Richard Wright's 1938 novel, Uncle Tom's Children.

Opportunities for African Americans to advance in the South were scarce. Schools were segregated, and Black students were not permitted to attend white high schools. As a result, African Americans were effectively denied a proper education. In the early 1930s, no high schools existed for Black students in the South. Consequently, nearly half of all Black individuals in the South had no education beyond the fifth grade. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Calpurnia tells the children she is one of only four members of her church who can read. Ironically, the Great Depression began to change this when northern school boards started integrating schools to cut the costs of maintaining separate facilities. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal also contributed by establishing the National Youth Administration (founded in 1935) and its Division of Negro Affairs, which helped teach Black students literacy skills. The Depression hit African Americans particularly hard, as they were already severely underemployed in the 1920s. With the economic downturn, even the menial jobs they once held, such as picking cotton, were taken by whites. The New Deal provided some relief through the creation of agencies like the Federal Housing Administration and the Works Progress Administration, which helped poor Black individuals find jobs and housing.

However, the oppressive society in the South often prevented African Americans from benefiting from this government assistance. Racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Shirts terrorized Black individuals out of their jobs. The vigilante practice of lynching was still prevalent in the South during the early 1930s. At that time, only North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Alabama had laws specifically outlawing lynching. Surprisingly, only two northern states had similar laws. By 1935, however, public outrage had grown to the point where lynchings were no longer generally tolerated, even by whites. In Lee's novel, for example, the local sheriff tries to warn Atticus Finch of a potential lynch mob, while a concerned citizen, B. B. Underwood, is ready to fend them off from the jail with his shotgun.

To Kill a Mockingbird delves into two profoundly unsettling topics: rape and racism. Lee tackles both issues with profound sensitivity. The specifics of Mayella Ewell's alleged rape emerge during the trial scenes, where Atticus carefully navigates the proceedings. Although these details are not graphically described, there are hints of incest—that Bob Ewell not only assaulted his daughter but also raped her. As the story is narrated through Scout's perspective, all this information is conveyed subtly and concisely.

The novel also portrays the reality of racism in segregated southern towns during the 1930s, about thirty years before the civil rights movement. African Americans are frequently referred to as "niggers" and are regarded as beneath the law. Many white community members feel entitled to impose their own form of justice on Blacks, especially on those, like Robinson, whom they believe have broken racist sexual taboos. By expressing his sympathy for Mayella, Tom Robinson—a Black man who dares to feel sorry for a white woman—offends the town's ignorant bigots. A mob gathers at the jail, intent on dragging Robinson from his cell and lynching him.

Through her measured and deliberate style, Lee reveals the ugliness of this racist society and presents Atticus as a symbol of enlightenment and compassion. Nonetheless, her comparison of Tom Robinson to a mockingbird, a harmless bird described as existing "only to sing his heart out for us," might come across to some readers as patronizing and somewhat racist. This analogy reinforces the stereotype of the Black man's role as a servant and fails to acknowledge the intellectual equality of Blacks.

• 1930s: Unemployment soared to 25% during the Great Depression, and the New Deal’s government relief programs led to a federal budget deficit.
• 1960: Following a decade of peak American production and exports, unemployment fell below 5%, and the federal government achieved a small surplus.
• Today: Unemployment rates hover between 5% and 6%, while the federal government strives to reduce a multi-billion dollar deficit in an increasingly competitive global economy.
• 1930s: Schools were racially segregated, with classroom focus on rote memorization of basic subjects.
• 1960: School integration laws, sometimes enforced by force, were being implemented; the 1959 launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik increased the emphasis on math and science education.
• Today: School populations reflect the racial diversity of their communities, and curricula emphasize the integration of subjects and problem-solving skills.
• 1930s: Only white male property owners were allowed to serve on juries.
• 1960: Women and minorities gained the right to serve on juries; although the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to exclude jurors based on race, many trials still barred Blacks and Hispanics.
• Today: All registered voters are eligible for jury duty, but prosecution and defense teams often seek to create juries with a racial composition favorable to their side.
• 1930s: Major trials were community entertainment events, and it was rare for children to have seen a movie.
• 1960: Television emerged as the leading form of entertainment, while families also enjoyed films at drive-in theaters.
• Today: While television and movies remain significant, computers and video games are rapidly gaining a share of the entertainment market. Trials continue to entertain the public and have dedicated cable channels.